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Ohio>Zaleski>Feb 11-13

Hey all, I'm planning on doing a 3 day trip at Zaleski again, so if anyone wants to go just shout it out. I am not married to Zaleski, but it does offer good mileage, challenging terrain etc. If someone wants to go and suggests something else, I'd be willing to drive up to 5 or so hours. This opens up the Red or some parts of VA, or Indi. Let me know who's interested.

All these trips sound fun... I did the north loop to camp H 2 weekends ago and it was an absolutely fantastic hike - one of the best trips I've had in a year. Good weather (aside from the wind), good trails, and the best part - I had no gear malfunctions.

Just a heads up if you haven't been out there recently is the trail between G and H is technically closed. There is a logging or reclamation project of some kind going on at the bend between G and point 16 on the map (the side of the trail that parallels 278 for a bit). There is a new trail blazed between point 11 and about 1-2 tenths of a mile from the trail that leads in to camp (where the outhouse and water cistern are).

I hiked up the east side of the trail and hit the side trail at point 11 to take the new route. Then the next morning we continued on the old trail down to point G.

The new trail is MUCH more mild than the old trail. If you are headed up to H there is a 200' climb just before point 16 (look at the park map and you can read the topo). Depending on your level of fitness this can be a real bummer at the end of a long day of hiking. Going down isn't so bad on fresh legs.

The new trail isn't marked on the map so I can't comment on the elevation, but what I can tell you is it is very mild. The stretch on the western route between point 19 and M is about twice as challenging as the new trail.

Thanks for the heads up, I actually just hiked that section a couple weeks ago. They had a reroute in place at that time. The section between E-F is absolutely awful in the muck. Might consider a trip to RRG instead now that I'm thinking about it.

The section between E-F is absolutely awful in the muck. Might consider a trip to RRG instead now that I'm thinking about it.

Another thought about the muck - the section coming down from O to P is all in the valley crossing the stream 1000 times. There were some very soft spots and I sank a bit in the muck, but neither one of us had any trouble. I think the hardest part about that section was trying to find a shallow enough spot in the stream in a few spots. A couple of the crossings resulted in a very flat portion of trail that was nothing but muck for about 100-200 feet. Even still, I would not hesitate to do that section of trail again. It was just one of the aspects of that particular trip.

That worked perfectly, thanks. Yeah, I was wondering what that split was about when it wasn't marked on the map. I felt completely lost going into H. I went A-H that day. Wonder what the actual mileage was.